Ignorance Was Bliss
The Premise The internet has changed our brains. Mass media has been changing our perceptions of ourselves for several generations, but the Internet has accelerated and amplified this process. Inforamtion overload is real, and damaging. More information drives stress and dissatisfactions. This is driven by many factors: *advertising specifically designed to drive feelings of lack, loss, or desire *celebrity culture focussed on superficial measures of achievement sucha s money, fame, popularity *increased availability of news about traumatic and unpleasant events in all parts of the world *increasing manipulation of the media by heavily financed special interests driving confusion and often deliberate manipulation of public opinion The flow of content is deeper, faster, and richer than ever before. But our capacity to process this information is largely fixed. Conflicting information causes stress, and stress causes unhappiness. Our cultural drive to know more, be more informed, to have all the information available to us is putting our brains under stress. Less information was less stressful. Ignorance was bliss. Key Questions *Was there ever really a time when life was simpler? *What is the effect of new technologies on stress and happiness? *How do we process the flow of information? *Are we reinforcing or challenging beliefs? *How much is too much information? *Are there better ways to cope? *Can the genie be put back in the bottle? When Ignorance Was Bliss Not that long ago, it was possible to imagine that your worldview was complete, that you knew everything you ever really needed to know, that the world made sense. People lived in small worlds, relatively untouched and unphased by other people and other lands. Back then it was possible for one person to know practically everything that needed to be known. It waspossible for one brain to contain all the useful knowledge required to function, make good decisions, and live a happy life. Sure, life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, but ithe mental landscape was so much simpler: *there were fewer people, and fewer places; *there was less to know; *there were fewer job options; *there was less entertainment; *there were fewer choices to be made; *there was less to buy; *there were fewer places to buy it; And most importantly, there were limited ways to know what other people were getting up to, in public or in private. If you were the most attractive person in the village, it was possible to believe you were the most attractive person anywhere. If you were wealthier than your peers, it wsa possible to believe that you were wealthier than practically everyone. if you were the fastest runner in the district, you may well have been the fastest runner in the world. No longer Never again can we know what it was like to think you knew it all. Because we have the Internet. And the Internet is incredibly awesome at reminding you how little you know, how small your world is, how much more there is out there, and how fucked up it all is. And it is incredibly awesome at reminding you how beautiful everyone else is, how rich everyone else is, how much fun everyone else is having, how strong they are, how fast they are, how much more creative, and accomplished, and talented and successful. The curse of knowing is the curse of constant insecurity. We live in a world where we have access to so much information that it is melting our brains.